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The car that brought out the crazies

This is a story of a unique Car, the make of an effervescent Indo-Japanese Brand.

The brand does hold true to it’s promise though, because it promises service even in the remotest parts of the country. However, this story is not about that. Its about this car being ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed’!

Let’s call this car Sewa, due to it having saved as well as being saved in its years spent in a very popular city of Paldi in Ahmedabad. Sewa belonged to a rather robust and entertaining lad called Prasoon. Prasoon belonged to a well-to-do business family based in Kolkata. He had taken admission in the masters programme in one of the most premier institutes of design education in Ahmedabad. Even though his sense of dressing was very relate-able to the state of Gujarat – Khaki Cotton Pants, Khaki Linen Shirts and Gandhi Slippers; his lifestyle was quiet lavish. He was a big foodie, having eaten in almost all the best eateries in the city. In his free time you would either find him practicing Kalaripayattu in his hostel room or chatting up a storm with some random person in some corner of the campus. He wore metal framed glasses that made his face look quite serious although he was a very happy -go-lucky fellow.

So this car that he owned, was pretty much as unusual as he was. There was once a time when it stopped running in the middle of nowhere and left him stranded for hours. And then there was once a time when a friend had an asthmatic attack and had to be taken to the hospital in the middle of the night and the car saved his life.

But there was this one time when the car became the most popular car in town. And that night, he had actually forgotten about it altogether. Yes. It was in the car’s fate to become famous. It was a weekend and Prasoon decided to drive down to the sunday market to buy some nick knacks for himself. He parked Sewa at the beginning of a bridge, that being the only place where he could park and was allowed, and decided to walk down to the market. By evening he met up with some friends there itself and ended up going for dinner with them. After dinner, he took an auto and returned to the campus, very conveniently forgetting about his car parked near the bridge in the old city.

After a few hours he got a call from the police asking him all sorts of questions about his car and its registration plate etc. and it is then that he realized he had totally forgotten about it. So he ran out, got the first ride he could get and rushed to the bridge in the old city. When he reached there, he saw a huge crowd gathered around his car and the bridge railing. He ran towards it and asked few people about why they were all crowing around the car. One member from the crowd remarked, ‘arre woh gadi ka owner che ne, wo bridge se suicide kiya’ – translating into, “oh you know the owner of the car parked his car here and then jumped off the bridge”! Hearing this Prasoon almost shat in his pants, thinking some guy might have used the bonnet of his car to climb up the ledge and jumped. He then ran to the police standing nearby and told them that it was him and that was his car around which the crowd had gathered. And then very nervously he asked about the man who had jumped from the bridge. Hearing that, the police laughed and told him that the crowd had gone crazy and that it was all hearsay. No one had actually jumped and that one passer by had caused that rumor just for fun.

So, that was that and Prasoon quietly went to his car, started and drove away laughing, leaving behind a crowd of bewildered Gujjus!